The converted 19th-century church that was once home to the R&B musician R. Kelly will be put up for sale on June 7th. Extensively renovated in the past 18 months, the place is now a four-bedroom home with a marble-clad fireplace in the living room, a sleek kitchen, a 1,500-square-foot rooftop terrace with an outdoor kitchen, and an elevator.
UPDATE (3.31.11): The property went under contract this week.
The converted 19th-century church that was once home to the R&B musician R. Kelly will be put up for sale on June 7th. Extensively renovated in the past 18 months, the place is now a four-bedroom home with a marble-clad fireplace in the living room, a sleek kitchen, a 1,500-square-foot rooftop terrace with an outdoor kitchen, and an elevator. Priced at $3.89 million, the Lake View home will be listed by Ed Jelinek and Shawn Daly of Coldwell Banker.
The red brick structure has changed hands several times since 2002, when Kelly sold it for $2.5 million to a couple who never moved in. According to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, it was sold again in 2005, this time for $2.4 million; in 2006 it was sold for $3 million to a buyer who later lost both this house and a Lincoln Park mansion to foreclosure. In November 2008, Ilene Greenblatt bought the property from the foreclosing lender for $1 million; it had no power and was in “terrible condition,” says Tim Mathias, Greenblatt’s project manager and designer for the latest round of renovations.
While Greenblatt (who would not agree to an interview) did make substantial upgrades and changes to the home’s interior, she retained some features of Kelly’s tenure there—most notably, the basement-level Colorado room that figured in the videotape that led to Kelly being charged in 2002 with 21 counts of child pornography; seven of those counts were dropped in 2004, and in 2008, a jury acquitted Kelly on all remaining charges.
Click through the photo tour below to see details of the house.